3D Printed Microneedles for the Transdermal Delivery of NAD<sup>+</sup> Precursor: Toward Personalization of Skin Delivery
Why this work is in the frame
A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
3D printing of microneedles (μNDs) for transdermal therapy has the potential to enable patient personalization based on the target disease, site of application, and dosage requirements. To convert this concept to reality, it is necessary that the 3D printing technology can deliver high resolution, an affordable cost, and large print volumes. With the introduction of benchtop 4K and 8K 3D printers, it is now possible to manufacture medical devices like μNDs at sufficient resolution and low cost. In this research, we systematically optimized the 3D printing design parameters such as resin viscosity, print angle, layer height, and curing time to generate customizable μNDs. We have also developed an innovative 3D coating microtank device to optimize the coating method. We have applied this to the development of novel μNDs to deliver an established NAD + precursor molecule, nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). A methacrylate-based polymer photoresin (eSun resin) was diluted with methanol to adjust the resin viscosity. The 3D print layer height of 25 μm yielded a smooth surface, thus reducing edge-ridge mismatches. Printing μNDs at 90° to the print platform yielded 84.28 ± 2.158% ( n = 5) of the input height thus increasing the tip sharpness (48.52 ± 10.43 μm, n = 5). The formulation containing fluorescein (model molecule), sucrose (viscosity modifier), and Tween-20 (surface tension modifier) was coated on the μNDs using the custom designed microtank setup, and the amount deposited was determined fluorescently. The dye-coated μND arrays inserted into human skin ( in vitro ) showed a fluorescence signal at a depth of 150 μm ( n = 3) into the skin. After optimization of the 3D printing parameters and coating protocol using fluorescein, NMN was coated onto the μNDs, and its diffusion was assessed in full-thickness human skin in vitro using a Franz diffusion setup. Approximately 189 ± 34.5 μg (5× dipped coated μNDs) of NMN permeated through the skin and 41.2 ± 7.53 μg was left in the skin after 24 h. Multiphoton microscopy imaging of NMN-coated μND treated mouse ear skin ex vivo demonstrated significantly ( p < 0.05) increased free-unbound NADPH and reduced fluorescence lifetime of NADPH, both of which are indicative of cellular metabolic rates. Our study demonstrates that low-cost benchtop 3D printers can be used to print high-fidelity μNDs with the ability to rapidly coat and release NMN which consequently caused changes in intracellular NAD + levels.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it